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ijjfgjswS 

HMM- 

fcibrarjp  of  the  theological  ^eminarp 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 

-VVV  fS{- 

FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

REVEREND  CHARLES  ROSENBURY  ERDMAN 

D.D.,  LL.D. 

_ A _ 

BV  4626  . C27  1923  j 

Caie,  Norman  Macleod. 

The  seven  deadly  sins 


t 


THE  SEVEN  DEADLY  SINS 

Rev.  NORMAN  MACLEOD  CAIE,  b.d. 


« 


SEVEN 


THE 


DEADLY  SINS 


BY  n/ 

REV.  NORMAN  MACLEOD  CAIE,  B.D. 

LATE  BERRY  SCHOLAR  IN  THEOLOGY,  ST.  ANDREWS 
Author  of  “Night-Scenes  of  Scripture  ”  etc . 


NEW 


YORK 


GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1923, 

BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


THE  SEVEN  DEADLY  SINS.  II 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


CONTENTS 

PACE 

i:  PRIDE . 9 

ii :  envy . ,23 

Hi:  ANGER . 35 

tv:  sloth . 49 

v:  AVARICE  .  ,  .  >  -  61 

VI :  GLUTTONY . 75 

•  ,  «  •  »  8? 


VII :  SENSUALITY 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/sevendeadlysinsOOcaie 


I:  PRIDE 


h 


THE  SEVEN  DEADLY  SINS 


I:  PRIDE 

“fT^ELL  them,  man,  about  their  sins!” 

1  It  was  the  incisive  remark  of  a  ven¬ 
erable  preacher  to  one  who  had  just  de¬ 
livered  in  his  hearing  an  elegant  pulpit  pre¬ 
lection.  And  as  we  advance  in  Christian 
experience,  we  feel  it  increasingly  needful 
to  obtain  clear  views  of  the  special  sins 
against  which  we  are  summoned  to  contend. 
An  invisible  enemy  with  smokeless  powder 
will  make  very  brave  men  quail.  It  was  in¬ 
deed  an  omen  of  good  hope  when  the  Psalm¬ 
ist  could  exclaim:  “This  is  my  infirmity,” 
placing  his  finger  decisively  upon  his  own 
most  vulnerable  spot. 

Such  a  feeling  doubtless  led  many  old 
writers  to  the  task  of  singling  out  the  most 

[9] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

insidious  sins  which  war  against  the  soul. 
In  the  course  of  debate,  seven  were  gradu¬ 
ally  agreed  upon,  as  the  subtlest  and  worst; 
and  the  treatment  of  these  sins — the  Seven 
Deadly  Sins,  as  they  came  to  be  called — was 
a  favourite  theme  in  mediaeval  theology. 
To  this  theme  also,  Dante  devotes  his  “Pur- 
gatorio.”  The  subject  has  scarcely  been 
touched  by  Protestant  writers,  but  it  will 
still  repay  careful  consideration.  At  the 
outset,  the  general  plan  of  the  “Purgatorio” 
may  be  briefly  described.  Dante  represents 
his  pilgrims  as  being  purged  from  their 
deadly  sins,  through  the  gradual  and  pain¬ 
ful  ascent  of  a  mountain,  with  the  Garden 
of  Paradise  upon  its  crest.  The  mountain 
originated  thus.  When  Satan  fell  from 
heaven,  he  struck  the  southern  side  of  the 
earth.  The  land  whereon  he  fell,  fled  to  the 
other  hemisphere,  and  the  soil  displaced  as 
he  tore  his  way  to  hell,  through  the  centre 
[10] 


Pride 


of  the  earth,  was  flung  up  behind  him  by  the 
shock,  and  formed  this  mountain.  It  is  a 
fine  conception.  The  fall  of  Satan  threw 
up  a  pathway  back  to  Paradise  lost.  The 
Garden  might  be  regained. 

There  is  some  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil. 

Would  men  observingly  distil  it  out. 

Two  advantages  resulted  from  Dante’s 
scheme.  First,  he  could  arrange  the  Seven 
Deadly  Sins  in  terraces  on  the  mountain 
side,  at  their  respective  distances  from 
Paradise.  Second,  he  could  give  the  entire 
purifying  process  an  aspect  of  brightness 
and  hope,  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  “Inferno,” 
with  its  dread  inscription  above  the  gate: 
“All  hope  abandon,  ye  who  enter  here.” 
Dante’s  pilgrims  in  the  “Purgatorio”  were 
prisoners;  but  they  were  “prisoners  of 
hope.” 

The  sin  which  Dante  and  all  other  me- 

cm 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

dkeval  writers  agree  upon  as  fundamental  is 
Pride.  At  the  first  blush,  this  may  seem 
surprising,  and  it  might  be  thought  that 
other  evil  motions  of  the  human  spirit  might 
have  taken  precedence  of  it.  Upon  reflec¬ 
tion,  however,  the  arrangement  will  be 
found  to  accord  with  Scripture  and  to  com¬ 
mend  itself  to  our  ethical  sense.  Our  first 
parents  erred  through  pride.  To  the  temp¬ 
tation:  “Ye  shall  be  as  gods,”  they  suc¬ 
cumbed.  Nay,  “by  that  sin  fell  the  angels.” 
“Better  to  reign  in  hell  than  serve  in 
heaven,”  Milton  makes  his  Satan  say.  And 
when  we  review  the  matter,  we  see  that  the 
essence  of  every  sin  lies  in  pride;  for  the 
soul  of  pride  is  the  setting  up  of  self  against 
all  other  selves,  even  against  God.  “Pride,” 
said  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  “is  the  most 
grievous  of  all  sins,  because  it  exceeds  them 
all  in  that  turning  away  from  God,  which  is 
the  crowning  constituent  of  all  sin.” 

[12] 


Pride 


Pride,  however,  is  to  be  carefully  distin¬ 
guished  from  a  proper  Christian  self-re¬ 
spect.  Beneath  a  forbidding  exterior  and 
many  eccentricities  of  dress  the  Puritans 
had  such  nobility  of  nature  that  they  cre¬ 
ated  the  finest  army  in  Europe  and  set  their 
feet  upon  the  necks  of  kings.  Beneath  a 
superficial  sternness,  the  Calvinists  had  such 
a  “haughtiness  of  soul”  that  they  made  the 
Scots  character  reverenced  and  feared 
throughout  the  world.  The  Puritans  and 
Calvinists  were  the  embodiment  of  self- 
respect.  But  we  should  not  call  them  proud. 
Would  that  we  had  more  of  their  independ¬ 
ence  and  stalwart  force  to-day!  Let  us 
trust  the  merit  of  our  own  personality. 
Everything  vibrates  to  that  iron  string. 

Loss  is  no  shame,  nor  to  be  less  than  foe, 

But  to  be  lesser  than  thyself. 

The  self-respecting  man  demands  recog¬ 
nition  for  merit  which  he  has;  the  proud 

[13] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

man  demands  recognition  for  merit  which 
he  has  not .  The  king  of  a  petty  tribe  stalk¬ 
ing  each  morning  from  his  hovel,  bidding 
the  sun  good  morrow,  and  pointing  its  course 
for  the  day,  embodies  wdiat  is  meant.  The 
proud  man  arrogates  to  himself  wholly 
imaginary  powers ;  he  despises  those  of 
others;  and  he  will  even  dictate  to  God.  At 
the  outset  of  the  recent  war,  the  world  was 
called  to  witness  an  appalling  instance  of 
such  pride.  There  was  a  time  when  the  ex- 
Emperor  of  Germany  was  regarded  by 
other  peoples  as  a  strong  and  not  unfriendly 
monarch;  but  in  the  early  stages  of  the  war, 
he  stood  convicted  of  the  first  of  the  Seven 
Deadly  Sins.  His  words  left  the  matter  in 
no  doubt:  “On  me  as  German  Emperor  the 
Spirit  of  God  has  descended.  I  am  His 
weapon,  His  sword,  His  vicegerent.  Woe 
to  the  disobedient!  Death  to  cowards  and 
traitors!”  Surely  the  comment  of  a  leading 

[14] 


Pride 


journal  was  amply  justified:  “We  have 
been  accustomed  to  look  on  such  utterances 
as  more  or  less  innoxious  flummery;  but  we 
know  better  now,  when  we  have  seen  the 
mad  dog  rush  open-mouthed  into  the 
crowd.”  It  recalled  Napoleon,  who  cried: 
“There  shall  be  no  God.”  God  said:  “There 
shall  be  no  Napoleon.”  And  God  always 
has  the  last  word. 

In  everyday  life  the  sin  of  pride  appears 
in  many  forms.  “Few,”  it  has  been  re¬ 
marked,  “have  the  steadiness  of  head  and 
hand  to  carry  a  full  cup,  especially  if  it  has 
been  suddenly  filled.”  Material  prosperity, 
though  far  from  being  an  evil  in  itself,  is 
apt  to  engender  very  insidious  kinds  of 
pride.  The  wheels  of  a  carriage  may  be 
clogged  and  stopped  by  flowers ;  and  it  is  by 
no  means  everyone  who  can  say  with  St. 
Paul:  “I  know  both  how  to  be  abased  and  I 
know  how  to  abound  ” 


[15] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

There  is  also  pride  of  intellect.  In  classic 
paganism,  this  form  of  the  sin  meets  us  not 
infrequently.  Horace  scornfully  declares: 
“X  hate  the  vulgar  crowd  and  keep  them  at 
arm’s  length”;  and  Aristotle  in  his  Ethics 
conceives  the  sage  as  walking  with  a  stately 
gait,  speaking  with  an  imperious  voice,  and 
looking  down  on  all  he  meets.  He  wonders 
at  nothing  and  considers  nothing  great, 
since  he  desires  his  own  superiority  to  be 
universally  recognised.  Beside  such  a  pic¬ 
ture,  this  may  well  be  set  from  Buskin:  “I 
believe  that  the  first  test  of  the  truly  great 
man  is  his  humility.  I  do  not  mean  by  hu¬ 
mility  doubt  of  his  own  powers  or  hesitation 
to  speak  his  own  opinions.  Arnolfo  knows 
that  he  can  build  a  good  dome  at  Florence — 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  knows  that  he  has  worked 
out  a  problem  or  two  that  would  have  puz¬ 
zled  any  one  else.  Only  they  do  not  expect 
their  fellow-men  to  fall  down  and  worship 
[16] 


Pride 


them.  They  have  a  curious  under-sense  of 
powerlessness,  feeling  that  the  greatness  is 
not  in  them  but  through  them,  that  they 
could  not  do  or  be  anything  else  than  God 
has  made  them.”  Yet  overweening  pride  of 
intellect  still  lifts  its  head;  and  its  climax 
has  been  achieved  in  that  arrogant  philoso¬ 
phy  which  Nietzsche  taught  pre-war  Ger¬ 
many  too  well.  That  philosophy  simply 
means:  “Despise  others  and  exalt  yourself.” 
And  once  again  the  proverb  has  been  abun¬ 
dantly  verified:  “Pride  goeth  before  de¬ 
struction,  and  an  haughty  spirit  before  a 
fall.” 

Finally,  there  is  pride  in  spiritual  gifts 
and  powers.  In  the  parable  of  the  Pharisee 
and  the  Publican,  this  “devil’s  darling  sin” 
is  pilloried  forever;  and  nothing  in  literature 
is  more  magnificent  than  the  way  in  which 
Jesus  elsewhere  lashes  it.  The  reason  is  not 
far  to  seek.  The  Pharisee  claimed  a  per- 

[17] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

feetion  which  he  did  not  possess,  and  he 
trusted  not  in  another  but  in  himself.  He 
thanked  God  that  he  was  not  as  other  men. 
But  the  other  men  may  have  thanked  God 
for  that,  also.  This  religious  pride,  thus  pil¬ 
loried  by  Christ,  really  closes  the  door 
against  any  possible  salvation,  and  is  ac¬ 
cordingly  the  most  fundamental  of  all  the 
Seven  Deadly  Sins.  The  man  who  is  con¬ 
fident  about  his  health  cannot  be  treated; 
the  man  who  is  confident  about  his  wisdom 
cannot  be  taught;  the  man  who  is  confident 
about  his  spiritual  perfection  cannot  be  re¬ 
deemed. 

On  the  first  terrace  of  the  purgatorial 
mountain,  whereon  Dante’s  pilgrims  are  be¬ 
ing  cleansed  from  pride,  we  see  them  walk¬ 
ing  over  a  marble  pavement  covered  with 
sculptured  figures,  which  preach  to  them 
mute  sermons  on  the  beauty  of  lowliness  of 
mind.  Many  such  pictures  rise  before  our 
[18]  ' 


Pride 


imagination.  Moses  who  wist  not  that  his 
face  shone,  when  God  spake  with  him  on 
the  mount;  the  Virgin  who  knelt  in  self- 
abasement  when  she  knew  that  the  infant 
Jesus  would  be  nursed  in  her  arms;  our 
Lord  Himself,  who,  though  He  was  rich, 
yet  for  our  sakes  became  poor,  that  we, 
through  His  poverty,  might  be  made  rich. 
Can  we  be  haughty  for  whom  He  became 
humble?  Can  we  be  proud  before  the 
Cross? 


[19] 


II:  ENVY 


II:  ENVY 


HAVING  witnessed  the  cleansing  of 
the  ‘‘prisoners  of  hope”  from  the 
sin  of  pride,  upon  the  lowest  terrace  of  the 
purgatorial  mountain,  Dante,  Virgil,  and 
the  pilgrim  explorers  climb  through  the 
stairway  on  to  the  second  terrace — that: 
upon  which  the  victims  of  envy  are  being 
purified.  Envy  is  the  second  of  the  Seven 
Deadly  Sins.  It  should,  of  course,  be  care¬ 
fully  distinguished  from  legitimate  and  hon¬ 
ourable  ambition,  as  pride  was  distinguished 
from  a  right  self-respect.  Poor  indeed  is 
the  man  who  has  no  honest  spirit  of  ambi¬ 
tion  to  “covet  earnestly  the  best  gifts.” 

Aspire,  break  bounds. 

Endeavour  to  be  good 
And  better  still  and  best! 

Success  is  nought, 

Endeavour’s  all! 


[23] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

Upon  a  monument  to  an  Alpine  guide 
who  perished  in  a  crevasse,  are  the  simple 
words:  “He  died  climbing.’’  No  worthier 
tribute  could  be  paid  to  any  soul  at  last. 
The  Greek  motto  of  the  oldest  Scottish  Uni¬ 
versity  is,  translated,  “Always  to  be  best”; 
and  the  words  embody  an  entirely  praise¬ 
worthy  attitude  to  life.  Without  the  sheer 

desire  for  excellence  and  something  of  that 

% 

“divine  dissatisfaction,”  which  is  the  main¬ 
spring  of  progress  in  every  sphere,  charac¬ 
ter  is  sadly  incomplete.  When  a  noted 
physician  declared:  “After  fifty  years  of 
study  of  the  ghastly  doings  of  the  tubercle 
bacillus,  I  can  honestly  say  that  I  would 
rather  have  the  power  to  cause  the  tears 
shed  on  its  account  to  cease  than  to  be  the 
greatest  official  or  the  greatest  owner  in  the 
W'orld,”  he  uttered  a  legitimate  and  very 
noble  aspiration.  Our  aim  should  always 
be,  not  the  injuring  but  the  blessing  of 

[24] 


Envy 

others,  just  by  excelling  them  in  lofty  and 
philanthropic  ways. 

Envy,  however,  is  a  carping  and  ill- 
humoured  attitude  of  spirit  towards  the  ex¬ 
cellence  and  success  of  our  neighbour.  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas  defined  it  as  “sadness  at 
another’s  good.”  It  is  displeasure  and  re¬ 
gret  when  some  one  else  prospers  better  than 
we  ourselves  do.  And  it  includes  a  certain 
unlovely  satisfaction  at  the  calamities  by 
which  another  may  be  overtaken.  “Few,” 
said  a  brilliant  French  writer,  “are  able  to 
suppress  in  themselves  a  secret  pleasure 
over  the  misfortunes  of  their  friends.”  A 
more  petty  and  despicable  spirit  it  is  diffi¬ 
cult  to  conceive.  “Saul  eyed  David.”  He 
grieved  at  the  stripling’s  progress,  and  flung 
his  royal  javelin  at  him  twice.  The  same 
spirit,  singularly  contemptible  in  itself,  has 
been  responsible  for  some  of  the  greatest 
catastrophes  in  history.  If  pride  produced 

[25] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

man’s  first  sin,  envy  caused  his  second. 
And  countless  crimes  and  persecutions  have 
been  inspired  since  then  by  the  envy  of  evil 
men  at  those  who  were  more  spiritually- 
minded  than  themselves.  Among  nations 
envy  has  produced  Jesuitical  conspiracies 
and  bloody  wars;  and  one  of  the  most  po¬ 
tent  causes  of  the  recent  world-wide  war  was 
the  jealousy  of  one  would-be  foremost  na¬ 
tion  towards  other  peoples,  who  were  be¬ 
lieved  to  stand  across  the  path  of  her  ideals. 
Nay,  our  Lord  Himself  was  delivered  to  the 
Cross  by  the  envy  of  the  priests  and  scribes. 
They  saw  that  He  was  manifestly  super¬ 
seding  them  and  breaking  their  spell.  And 
they  could  not  look  upon  His  beauty  with¬ 
out  the  Cain-spirit  rankling  in  their  hearts. 

In  everyday  life,  the  sin  of  envy  fre¬ 
quently  appears.  Time  and  again  it  has 
brought  about  the  collapse  of  reforming  and 
progressive  movements.  It  drove  Socrates 
[26] 


Envy 

to  drink  the  hemlock:  it  precipitated  the 
persecution  of  Galilee:  it  expelled  John 
Wesley  from  the  Church  in  which  he  had 
been  born:  it  mingled  the  blood  of  the  Cov¬ 
enanters  with  the  wine  of  the  Sacrament 
on  the  mosshags  and  moors  of  Scotland.  In 
more  recent  days,  it  powerfully  helped  to  in¬ 
flict  upon  Macleod  Campbell  and  Robert¬ 
son  Smith  ecclesiastical  exile  and  broken 

hearts.  It  is  not  uncommon  for  men  of 
vision  to  discover  still  that  they  cannot  ad¬ 
vocate  some  fresh  aspect  of  truth  without 
running  the  gauntlet  of  the  same  personal 
bitterness  and  envy.  Let  us  be  willing  to 
have  our  views — and  maybe  ourselves — dis¬ 
placed  by  better  measures  and  men,  if  such 
there  be.  In  this  way  alone  can  we  “buy 
the  truth  and  sell  it  not.” 

The  sin  of  envy  has  been  called  the  sin  of 
the  strong,  who  often  cannot  bear  that 
smaller  folk  should  get  any  of  the  success 

[27] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

or  praise  which  they  consider  to  be  due  to 
themselves.  History  certainly  contains  in¬ 
stances  of  this  insane  craving  on  the  part  of 
outstanding  personalities.  Alexander  the 
Great  could  not  tolerate  any  praise  being 
given  to  his  generals,  because  he  felt  it  so 
much  subtracted  from  himself.  But  envy 
is  in  general  the  special  sin,  rather,  of  the 
weak.  Such  people,  being  beaten  in  the  race 
of  life,  become  consumed  with  jealousy  and 
chagrin.  Perhaps  they  have  been  neglectful 
of  their  opportunities ;  and  wrhen  others, 
more  industrious,  step  ahead,  they  give  way 
to  pique.  “They  wish  to  have  my  fortune,” 
said  a  successful  man  concerning  his  de¬ 
tractors,  “but  why  do  they  not  wish  to  have 
my  labours?”  Envy  is  obvious  in  some  peo¬ 
ple’s  conversation.  Pliny  remarked  that 
Virgil  was  devoid  of  imagination,  and  cer¬ 
tain  Roman  critics  insinuated  that  Horace 
plagiarized  from  the  Grecian  poets.  Dis- 
[28] 


Envy 

paraging  remarks  of  a  similar  kind  are  often 
astutely  introduced  into  people’s  ordinary 
talk;  and  as  “Saul  eyed  David,”  they  scan 
each  other’s  achievements  with  jealous  fore¬ 
boding  or  chagrin.  The  diary  of  the  saintly 
Andrew  Bonar  has  the  following  entry: 
“This  day  twenty  years  ago,  I  preached  for 
the  first  time  as  an  ordained  minister.  It  is 
amazing  that  the  Lord  has  spared  me  and 
used  me  at  all.  .  .  .  Yet  envy  is  my  hurt, 
and  to-day  I  have  been  seeking  grace  to  re¬ 
joice  exceedingly  over  the  usefulness  of 
others,  even  where  it  casts  me  into  the  shade. 
.  .  .  Lord,  give  more  and  more  to  those 
brethren  whom  I  have  despised.”  This  good 
man  had  been  jealous  of  ministers  seem¬ 
ingly  more  successful  than  himself.  And  if 
such  a  man  was  victimised  by  envy,  every 
one  should  challenge  like  a  sentry  his  own 
heart. 

Envy  is  a  sin  of  the  eyes,  the  ears,  and  the 

[29] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

tongue;  and  in  Dante’s  “Purgatorio,”  each 
of  these  is  seen  undergoing  its  appropriate 
discipline.  Upon  the  wall  of  a  chapel  at 
Padua  there  is  also  a  suggestive  figure  of 
Envy  painted  by  Giotto,  Dante’s  friend. 
The  figure  is  given  long  ears  to  catch  every 
breath  of  rumour  and  scandal  which  might 
hurt  a  neighbour,  and  a  serpent  tongue  to 
poison  his  reputation.  Then  the  tongue 
coils  back  to  sting  the  eyes  of  the  figure  her¬ 
self.  This  last  detail  conveys  the  deepest 
hint  of  all.  Envy  is  blind.  On  the  terrace 
of  envy,  Dante’s  pilgrims  observe  that  the 
eyes  of  every  penitent  are  sewn  up  with 
wire.  But  the  coiling  back  of  the  serpent 
tongue  to  sting  the  figure’s  eyes  suggests 
that  envy  is  really  blinded  by  herself.  Jeal¬ 
ousy  regarding  others  inexorably  reacts  to 
embitter  the  heart  out  of  which  it  comes. 


Everywhere  the  light  and  shade 
By  the  gazer’s  eye  is  made. 

[30] 


Envy 

When  the  poems  of  Lord  Byron  first  ap¬ 
peared,  an  anonymous  reviewer  enthusias¬ 
tically  praised  them,  and  declared  that  in 
the  presence  of  such  products  of  genius,  Sir 
Walter  Scott  could  no  longer  be  considered 
the  leading  poet  of  his  day.  It  was  after¬ 
wards  discovered  that  the  anonymous  re¬ 
viewer  was  Sir  Walter  himself!  No  finer 
instance  of  literary  generosity  exists.  In¬ 
stead  of  putting  a  spoke  in  Byron’s  wheel, 
after  the  manner  of  the  lesser  breed  of  crit¬ 
ics,  Scott  frankly  appreciated  Byron’s 
amazing  powers.  To  school  oneself  to  such 
an  appreciation  of  others’  merit  in  every 
sphere,  and  even  though  it  may  adversely 
affect  one’s  own  position,  is  the  surest  anti¬ 
dote  to  envy. 

He  lost  the  game:  no  matter  for  that; 

He  kept  his  temper  and  swung  his  hat. 


Of  this  generosity  towards  excellence  in 

[31] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

others,  the  supreme  example  is  that  of  John 
the  Baptist.  To  the  banks  of  Jordan,  St. 
John  had  drawn  great  multitudes  by  his 
preaching,  and  he  had  become  the  idol  of  the 
crowd.  Then  Jesus  came;  and  the  Bap¬ 
tist’s  popularity  at  once  began  to  wane. 
To  a  man  of  his  eager  and  impetuous  type, 
the  temptation  to  envy  the  Lamb  of  God 
whose  advent  he  well  knew  must  eclipse  him, 
as  the  sunrise  extinguishes  the  stars,  must 
have  been  singularly  fierce.  Yet  no  shadow 
of  jealousy  falls  across  the  Baptist’s  heart. 
Rather  does  he  explicitly  declare — in  words 
which  are  apples  of  gold  in  pitchers  of  sil¬ 
ver — “He  must  increase,  but  I  must  de¬ 
crease.” 


[32] 


Ill:  ANGER 


Ill:  ANGER 


WHEN  Dante’s  pilgrims  reached  the 
third  terrace  upon  the  purgatorial 
mountain — that  of  Anger — they  found 
themselves  wrapped  in  a  dense  pall  of 
smoke.  The  poet’s  idea  evidently  is  that, 
as  pride  is  mainly  a  sin  of  the  eyes  and  envy 
a  sin  of  the  ears,  anger  is  a  sin  of  the  imag¬ 
ination.  The  angry  man  sets  his  imagina¬ 
tion  revolving  round  some  real  or  fancied 
wrong,  until  his  vision  becomes  dimmed  and 
clouded;  as  the  prophet  Balaam,  “the  man 
whose  eyes  had  been  opened,”  became  so 
blinded  by  passion  that  he  could  not  discern 
the  angel,  whom  his  own  ass  was  trying  to 
avoid. 

At  the  outset,  however,  one  must  distin- 

[35] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

guish  sinful  anger  from  righteous  indigna¬ 
tion,  as  pride  should  be  distinguished  from 
honest  self-respect,  and  envy  from  honour¬ 
able  ambition.  In  itself,  anger  is  by  no 
means  a  quality  to  be  sweepingly  con¬ 
demned.  Among  St.  Paul’s  ethical  counsels 
to  the  Ephesian  Christians,  there  is  one 
which  frankly  says,  “Be  ye  angry  and  sin 
not”;  and  Scripture  elsewhere  speaks  of 
“the  wrath  of  God,”  and  even  of  “the  wrath 
of  the  Lamb.”  St.  Mark  further  records  in 
our  Lord’s  Galilean  ministry  an  incident, 
during  which  He  looked  round  about  Him 
upon  His  auditors  “with  indignation.” 
And  what  pictures  of  splendid  wrath  are 
those  in  which  Jesus  condemns  the  Phari¬ 
sees  and  Scribes,  overturns  the  tables  of  the 
money-changers  in  the  Temple,  and  drives 
them  out  with  the  whip  of  cords!  Certain 
critics  have  suggested  that  in  these  scenes 
our  Lord  was  chargeable  with  excessive 

[36] 


Anger 

anger;  but  in  view  of  the  palpable  and  fla¬ 
grant  wrongs  which  He  was  denouncing, 
one’s  sober  judgment  must  rather  bow  be¬ 
fore  an  indignation  which  is  lofty  and  sub¬ 
lime. 

Forty  years  ago,  when  others  hedged,  the 
late  Mr.  Gladstone  went  up  and  down 
through  Britain  vehemently  denouncing  the 
Bulgarian  atrocities  and  the  unspeakable 
Turks  who  perpetrated  them.  That  was  a 
right  and  worthy  anger.  And  history  will 
always  record  with  justifiable  pride  the  in¬ 
dignation  called  forth  by  the  atrocities  in¬ 
flicted  by  militant  Germany,  at  the  outset 
of  the  recent  war,  upon  the  small  and  un¬ 
offending  land  of  Belgium.  Was  it  not  per¬ 
manently  creditable  to  our  chivalry  that  we 
were  then  so  passionately  ready  to  resist  un¬ 
provoked  aggression  and  to  defend  the 
weak? 

It  is  fatally  possible  that  character  should 

[37] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

become  too  pliable  and  soft;  but  Christian 
perfection  requires  the  edge  of  the  moral 
sense  to  be  kept  sensitive  and  sharp.  Even 
steel  needs  temper.  “I  will  never  believe,” 
said  Charles  Kingsley,  “that  a  man  has  any 
love  for  the  good  and  beautiful,  unless  he 
denounces  the  evil  and  disgusting,  the  mo¬ 
ment  he  sees  it.”  And  a  recent  writer  de¬ 
clares:  “There  will  be  more  and  more  need 
of  great  hatreds.  .  .  .  The  Christian  of  the 
twentieth  century  will  know  how  to  feel  con¬ 
tempt  as  well  as  admiration,  and  detestation 
as  well  as  love.”  These  are  strong  words, 
but  not  more  so  than  those  of  the  Psalmist : 
“Do  not  I  hate  them,  O  Lord,  that  hate 
Thee?  ...  I  hate  them  with  perfect 
hatred.  I  count  them  mine  enemies.” 
“Abhor  that  which  is  evil,”  said  St.  Paul; 
and  in  the  original,  the  word  “abhor”  calls 
up  the  image  of  a  hedgehog  with  its  quills 
all  out. 

[38] 


Anger 

You  have  no  enemies,  you  say. 

Alas,  my  friend,  the  beast  is  poor. 

He  who  has  mingled  in  the  fray 

Of  duty  that  the  brave  endure 

Must  have  made  foes!  If  you  have  none. 

You'  ve  hit  no  traitor  on  the  hip; 

You’ve  dashed  no  cup  from  perjured  lip; 

You’ve  turned  no  wrong  to  right; 

You’ve  been  a  coward  in  the  fight! 

There  is  thus  an  anger  which  is  right  and 
noble.  But  this  anger  we  must  clearly  dis¬ 
tinguish  from  that  which  is  sinful.  In  what 
respects  then  is  anger  to  be  held  a  sin? 
First,  when  it  is  expended  in  foolish  and 
improper  ways.  There  is  a  classical  story 
of  two  youths,  Augustus  and  Eugene,  who 
had  been  alternately  spinning  a  top.  They 
fell  to  quarrelling  about  their  turns,  seized 
each  other  in  a  rage ;  and  one  pulled  a  sharp 
knife  from  his  pocket,  and  stabbed  and 
killed  the  other.  One  lad  thus  lost  his  life 
and  the  second  became  a  murderer,  merely 
to  settle  whose  turn  it  was  to  spin  a  top. 

[39] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

People  grow  very  angry  over  such  senseless 
pretexts  still.  The  vision  of  the  prophet 
Balaam  was  so  clouded  by  the  fumes  of  his 
rage  that  he  lost  his  perspective  and  took  to 
belabouring  his  ass.  A  haughty  ruler  has 
fallen  into  a  passion  over  some  resistance  to 
his  unjust  demands.  A  sulky  boy  becomes 
consumed  by  petulant  rage  over  a  reproof 
from  his  father,  which  drives  him  to  run 
away  from  home  and  maybe  spoil  his  whole 
career.  “Behold  how  great  a  matter  a  little 
fire  kindleth.” 

Further,  anger  is  sinful  when  it  finds  ex¬ 
pression  in  profane  and  reckless  words.  “I 
would  there  were  a  sword  in  mine  hand,” 
cried  Balaam  to  his  ass  in  the  defile,  “for 
then  I  would  kill  thee.”  And  the  weak-kneed 
prophet  may  have  uttered  other  expletives 
which  Scripture  does  not  record.  At  all 
events,  shocking  are  the  words  which  we 
may  still  hear  showered  by  angry  carters 

[40] 


Anger 

and  drivers  upon  their  innocent  beasts  of 
burden  in  the  streets.  No  form  of  sinful 
anger  is  more  loathsome  and  revolting  than 
the  oaths  and  curses  which  it  so  frequently 
inspires.  In  our  domestic  and  social  rela¬ 
tionships  too,  what  passionate  words  some¬ 
times  escape  from  angry  tongues!  A  man 
can  bear  great  losses — a  woman  can  sacrifice 
her  child — with  Christian  fortitude  and  res¬ 
ignation  ;  but  they  are  wrapped  in  clouds  of 
indignation  at  the  blunders  of  an  employe 
or  the  careless  breaking  of  a  dish. 

The  truth  is  that  all  anger  is  sinful  which 
causes  us  to  lose  our  self-control.  A  poor 
cobbler  at  Leyden,  who  was  accustomed  to 
attend  the  public  disputations  at  the 
Academy,  was  asked  if  he  understood  Latin. 
“No,”  he  replied,  “but  I  always  know  who  is 
wrong  in  the  argument.”  “How?”  queried 
his  questioner.  “Why!”  came  the  answer, 
“by  noting  who  loses  his  temper  first!” 

[41] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

Even  when  our  wrath  is  legitimate,  it  is 
wrong  to  give  expression  to  it  in  passionate 
and  reckless  ways.  “Let  not  the  sun  go 
down  upon  your  wrath.”  In  other  words, 
regulate  and  put  the  strictest  limits  upon 
your  wrath.  It  is  not  needful  to  extinguish 
it  wholly,  provided  its  object  be  right  and 
worthy.  But  get  the  whip  hand  of  it. 
Check  it  by  the  curfew  bell.  This  bell  was 
originally  rung  each  evening  to  bid  all  put 
out  their  candles  and  rake  up  their  fires. 
The  custom  survives  in  the  ringing  of  town 
and  village  bells  at  nine  or  ten  o’clock 
throughout  Scotland.  Let  anger  be  simi¬ 
larly  confined.  Let  not  the  sun  go  down 
upon  it.  “He  that  is  slow  to  anger  is  better 
than  the  mighty ;  and  he  that  ruleth  his  spirit 
than  he  that  taketh  a  city.” 

To  subdue  sinful  anger,  many  expedients 
have  been  suggested.  When  in  the  fit  of 
passion,  let  a  person  try  to  see  himself  as 

[42] 


Anger 

others  see  him,  and  his  violence  will  subside. 
A  woman  with  a  drunken  husband  resolved 
to  reveal  him  to  himself.  She  knew  what  he 
was,  and  so  did  the  children — alas,  too  well ! 
But  he  did  not  seem  to  grasp  it.  One  night, 
when  he  returned  home  and  sank  to  dis¬ 
hevelled  slumber  in  his  chair,  she  had  him 
photographed,  and  laid  the  result  next 
morning  beside  him  at  breakfast.  The  dis¬ 
closure  is  said  to  have  caused  his  reforma¬ 
tion.  And  if  the  swollen  features  and  ex¬ 
cited  eyes  of  the  passionately  angry  man 
could  be  photographed  for  him  to  see  in 
moments  of  calmness,  the  camera  might  do 
a  moral  service  of  much  value.  Such  anger 
is  not  of  the  angel  but  of  the  brute. 

Then  there  is  the  celebrated  expedient  of 
interposing  some  little  space  of  silence  be¬ 
tween  one’s  rising  fury  and  its  audible  ex¬ 
pression.  It  is  told  of  Julius  Caesar  that, 
when  provoked,  he  would  repeat  the  whole 

[43] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

Roman  alphabet  before  uttering  a  word. 
And  we  have  the  old  advice:  When  angry, 
count  twenty  ere  you  speak.  It  has  been 
shrewdly  suggested  that  God  gave  us  two 
eyes  but  only  one  tongue,  in  order  that  we 
should  see  twice  as  much  as  we  say . 

Boys  flying  kites  haul  in  their  white- winged  birds: 
You  can’t  do  that  way  when  you’re  flying  words. 
“Careful  with  fire”  is  good  advice,  we  know; 
“Careful  with  words”  is  ten  times  doubly  so. 
Thoughts  unexpressed  may  sometimes  fall  back  dead. 
But  God  Himself  can’t  kill  them  when  they’re  said ! 

But  all  such  devices  must  be  futile  with¬ 
out  the  prayer  which  Dante  heard  chanted 
in  unison  upon  the  terrace  of  anger,  as  he 
and  Virgil  were  departing — a  prayer  to  the 
Lamb  of  God  Who  taketh  away  sin,  for 
spiritual  help  and  peace.  St.  Augustine, 
writing  to  a  friend,  beautifully  says:  “When 
the  winds  and  waves  of  angry  passion  rush 
upon  your  soul,  do  what  the  disciples  did 

[44] 


Anger 

when  the  tempest  fell  upon  them  in  the  boat. 
Call  to  Christ.”  And  nothing  will  calm  sin¬ 
ful  wrath  like  calling  to  and  meditating 
upon  Him  “Who,  when  He  was  reviled,  re¬ 
viled  not  again,  when  He  suffered,  threat¬ 
ened  not;  but  committed  Himself  to  Him 
that  judgeth  righteously.” 


[45] 


IV:  SLOTH 


IV: SLOTH 


NIGHT  was  falling  and  the  stars  were 
peeping  out  as  Dante’s  pilgrims 
climbed  through  the  stairway  to  the  fourth 
terrace  upon  the  purgatorial  mountain — 
that  of  Sloth.  A  silence  which  was  oppres¬ 
sive  brooded  over  all.  The  very  moon 
moved  more  slowly  than  was  her  wont. 
Everything  seemed  infected  with  the  leth¬ 
argic  spirit  of  the  terrace.  And  Dante  him¬ 
self  acknowledged  that  he  felt  like  one  who 
wanders  half  asleep.  The  sin  of  sloth  was 
dwelt  upon  somewhat  frequently  by  me¬ 
diaeval  writers,  and  it  was  invariably  dis¬ 
cussed  under  its  late  Latin  name,  Accidia . 
This  term  hardly  conveys  the  exact  meaning 
which  wre  attach  to  sloth,  and  a  scholarly  ex¬ 
positor  of  the  “Purgatorio”  defines  it  as 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

“the  break-down  of  interest  in  the  things 
which  are  worthy  of  a  man’s  endeavour.” 
To  these  things  there  had  not  been  absolute 
indifference  at  first.  The  initial  steps  had 
been  taken.  But  then  the  pursuit  had  slack¬ 
ened  and  the  hands  had  been  let  down.  A 
sentence  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs  expresses 
the  connotation  of  accidia  very  well.  “The 
slothful  man  roasteth  not  that  which  he  took 
in  hunting.”  An  advantage  had  been 
gained;  but  energy  and  perseverance  were 
lacking  to  follow  it  up. 

Such  paralysis  of  higher  interest  may  be 
noted  in  many  spheres,  in  our  everyday  life. 
There  is  the  man  who  begins  the  first  volume 
of  some  book,  but  before  he  is  half  way 
through,  he  tires;  or  who  joins  some  lecture- 
course,  but  before  he  has  attended  half  a 
dozen  lectures,  he  tires.  If  he  kept  a  diary 
— which  is  unlikely,  considering  the  sort  of 
man  he  is — it  would  present  a  melancholy 

[50] 


Sloth 

record  of  opportunities  not  improved. 
There  is  the  youth  who  has  enjoyed  the  ad¬ 
vantage  of  an  excellent  modern  education. 
He  has  acquired  distinct  business  aptitude, 
and  commercial  or  professional  skill.  The 
ball  seems  to  be  at  his  foot.  He  appears  to 
be  on  the  certain  path  to  material  success, 
intellectual  eminence,  and  noble  citizenship. 
But  his  hands  unexpectedly  relax.  A  cap¬ 
tain  of  modern  industry  recently  said  that 
his  apprentices,  despite  their  superior  ad¬ 
vantages,  seemed  less  eager  to  succeed  to¬ 
day  than  they  were  forty  years  ago.  Many, 
he  declared,  take  three  years  to  learn  what 
they  used  to  learn  in  two.  Often,  too,  there 
may  have  been  pathetic  sacrifices  to  equip 
them  for  their  future  work.  The  parents  of 
some  “lad  of  parts”  may  have  educated  him 
by  the  most  self-denying  toil.  How  diffi¬ 
cult  it  was  to  make  both  ends  meet,  so  as  to 
send  the  boy  to  college!  It  meant  at  least 

[51] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

one  hand  less  upon  the  father’s  farm,  one 
maid  less  to  help  the  delicate  mother,  no 
luxuries  admitted  to  the  shabby  home  for 
years!  And  yet  the  hands  of  the  youth  re¬ 
laxed,  and  he  seemed  to  lose  his  enterprise 
and  zest.  “The  slothful  man  roasteth  not 
that  which  he  took  in  hunting.” 

Ingratitude,  thou  marble-hearted  fiend! 

It  is  not  a  little  significant  that  Dante  in 
his  “Purgatorio”  takes  as  his  typical  exam¬ 
ple  of  the  sin  of  sloth  the  abbot  of  a  monas¬ 
tery.  Indeed  it  is  a  subtle  reminder  that  the 
sin  in  question  has  characterised  the  Church 
as  noticeably  as  the  world.  And  in  me¬ 
diaeval  days  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
most  insidious  temptation  of  the  cloister 
was  mental  and  spiritual  accidia .  The 
fierce  invective  of  Erasmus  makes  this  clear: 
“A  monk’s  holy  obedience  consists  in  what? 
In  leading  an  honest,  chaste,  and  sober  life? 

[52] 


Sloth 


Not  the  least.  In  acquiring  learning  in 
study  and  industry?  Still  less.  A  monk 
may  be  a  glutton,  a  drunkard  .  .  .  but  he 
has  broken  no  vow :  he  is  within  his  holy  obe¬ 
dience.  He  has  only  to  be  the  slave  of  a 
superior  as  good  for  nothing  as  himself,  and 
he  is  an  excellent  brother.”  Gustave  Dore’s 
picture,  entitled  “The  Novice,”  is  not  over¬ 
drawn.  It  depicts  a  youth  with  the  light  of 
genius  in  his  face,  finding  himself  for  the 
first  time  in  the  company  of  those  who  are 
to  be  his  lifelong  associates  in  a  monastery. 
At  the  line  of  limp  and  soulless  figures,  who 
manifestly  have  lost  all  vestiges  of  inspira¬ 
tion  and  almost  of  intellect,  he  is  casting  ter¬ 
rified  glances.  And  the  entire  tragedy  of 
the  unfortunate  youth’s  future  may  be  read 
in  these  pregnant  glances. 

Spiritual  sloth  may  to-day  have  covered 
its  tonsure  and  and  changed  its  garb.  But 
in  essence  it  is  with  us  still — the  paralysis  of 

[53] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

soul  in  which  all  effort  after  sacred  things 
has  utterly  broken  down.  Confronted  by 
meaningless  conventions,  or  disgusted  by 
flagrant  inconsistencies  on  the  part  of  peo¬ 
ple  who  lay  claim  to  special  virtue,  the  youth 
— inconsistent  too — sometimes  gives  up  all 
striving  after  spiritual  ends.  Wrapped  in 
luxury,  the  epicure  becomes  a  victim  of 
ennui ,  and  his  spiritual  nature  grows  torpid 
and  effete.  One  may  see  the  condition  of 
accidia  even  with  those  who  have  become 
satisfied  and  confident  as  to  spiritual  reali¬ 
ties.  When  a  man  becomes  quite  sure  of  a 
thing,  he  is  apt  to  tie  it  up  and  lay  it  in  a 
pigeonhole  aside.  So,  having  become 
gospel-hardened,  the  once  busy  toiler  in 
Church  and  Sunday  School  may  grow  cal¬ 
lous  and  unresponsive  to  the  summons  of  his 
Master,  which  used  to  move  and  thrill  him; 
and  the  service  which  is  perfect  freedom 
loses  its  fascination  and  its  joy.  It  is  peri- 

[54] 


Sloth 

lous  to  become  familiar  with  the  wrong.  But 
in  some  ways  it  is  even  more  perilous  to 
become  familiar  with  the  right  and  the  true 
—so  familiar  that  we  drop  our  hands  in  cold 
indifference,  and  the  right  and  true  become 
bereft  of  their  spell,  their  enticement,  their 
charm. 

While  Dante’s  pilgrims  are  groping  upon 
the  terrace  of  Sloth,  they  are  suddenly 
aroused  by  the  rush  of  loud  and  active  life. 
It  is  the  penitents  who  are  sweeping  past; 
and  Dante’s  companion,  Virgil,  begs  them 
to  tell  him  the  best  way  to  manage  his 
ascent.  One  of  the  penitents  answers,  quite 
out  of  breath,  “Come  behind  me,”  and  ex¬ 
plains  that  he  cannot  stop  to  talk.  It  is  a 
skilfully  arranged  episode  in  the  great  poem. 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  gives,  as  one  of  the 
surest  signs  of  the  sin  of  sloth,  talkativeness 
— gossip — with  the  passerby.  The  indiffer¬ 
ent  man  will  always  throw  down  his  tools 

[55] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

for  a  discussion  with  a  bystander.  But  the 
busy  man  ever  presses  on.  The  eager  spirit 
cannot  be  deflected  from  a  noble  aim  by  any 
interruption  upon  the  way.  And  so  to 
counteract  accidia ,  we  must  bring  into  the 
concerns  of  the  soul  the  rush  of  busy  life. 
No  faculty  can  be  kept  healthy  and  vigorous 
without  exercise.  There  is  nothing  myster¬ 
ious  or  inexplicable  about  the  torpor  and 
decadence  of  a  soul.  It  is  the  natural  and 
inexorable  result  of  accidia — spiritual  sloth. 
“What  did  so-and-so  die  of?”  one  was  asked. 
“Doing  nothing,”  came  the  reply.  “That  is 
enough  to  kill  any  man,”  the  questioner  sa¬ 
gaciously  concluded. 

$ 

What  is  a  man. 

If  his  chief  good  and  market  of  his  time 
Be  but  to  sleep  apd  feed?  a  beast,  no  more. 

Sure,  He  that  made  us  with  such  large  discourse. 
Looking  before  and  after,  gave  us  not 
That  capability  and  godlike  reason 
To  rust  in  us  unused. 

[56] 


Sloth 


It  is  told  of  one  who  had  been  neglecting 
the  weekly  ordinances  of  religion  that  his 
minister  called,  went  over  to  the  fireplace, 
and  removing  a  li\^e  coal,  placed  it  on  the 
hearth  and  silently  stood  watching  until  it 
turned  from  a  ruddy  glow  to  a  dull  black 
mass.  Whereupon  the  man  broke  in,  “I 
know.  Say  no  more.  Next  Sunday  will 
find  me  in  God’s  House.” 

Time  is  passing.  We  must  take  warning 
and  make  an  end  of  spiritual  sloth.  Old 
stories  tell  how  death  and  a  man  once  con¬ 
cluded  a  tragic  bargain.  The  man  stipu¬ 
lated  that,  lest  he  be  taken  unawares,  death 
should  first  send  him  so  many  warnings  be¬ 
fore  he  came.  Then  years  later,  the  king  of 
terrors  stood  one  night  before  him,  to  his 
complete  surprise.  “Ah!”  cried  the  man, 
“you  have  broken  your  solemn  bargain. 
You  have  sent  me  no  warnings.”  “No 
warnings?”  responded  death.  “Your  eyes 

[57] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

are  dim.  Your  ears  are  dull.  Your  gums 
are  toothless.  Your  hair  is  thin;  and  to¬ 
night  it  falls  like  snowflakes  across  your  fur¬ 
rowed  brow.  No  warnings?  These  are  my 
warnings;  and  you  have  allowed  them  to 
come  to  you  in  vain!55 


[58] 


V:  AVARICE 


V:  AVARICE 


WHEN  Dante’s  pilgrims  climbed  to 
the  fifth  terrace  upon  the  purga¬ 
torial  mountain — that  of  Avarice — they  dis¬ 
covered  a  group  of  penitents  stretched  face 
downwards  on  the  ground,  repeating  with 
such  profound  sighs  that  one  could  scarcely 
make  out  what  they  were  saying,  the  Psalm¬ 
ist’s  words:  “My  soul  cleaveth  to  the  dust.” 
It  is  a  vivid  presentation  of  the  inevitable 
recoil  of  avarice  upon  the  moral  and  spirit¬ 
ual  nature.  One  is  reminded  of  the  master¬ 
piece  of  G.  F.  Watts — the  rich  young  ruler 
who  has  made  the  Great  Refusal,  retreating 
from  our  Lord  with  stooping  shoulders  and 
down-bent  head.  “He  was  sad  at  that  say¬ 
ing  and  went  away  grieved;  for  he  had  great 
possessions.” 


[61] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

Young  Himself,  Jesus  as  He  looked  upon 
this  ruler,  loved  him  and  visibly  shrank  from 
shattering  the  fairy  castle  of  his  dreams. 
No  alternative,  however,  remained,  and  the 
crestfallen  lad  sorrowfully  went  away. 
Some  think  that  at  last  he  found  his  sum- 
mum  bonum  and  became  the  man  we  now 
know  in  Scripture  as  Lazarus.  But  at  all 
events,  in  his  dejected  figure  we  can  read — 
alas,  too  well, — the  irrevocable  doom  of  a 
soul  wThich,  for  greed  of  material  gain,  sells 
its  Christ.  Dante,  wandering  with  Virgil 
through  the  Inferno,  comes  upon  this  young 
man  still  searching  for  his  lost  opportunity, 
but  in  vain.  He  is  the  Hamlet  of  the  New 
Testament,  standing  midway  between  his 
conscience  and  his  task;  and  his  indecision 
slew  him.  He  knew  more  than  he  could  do. 

From  the  interview  of  Christ  with  this 
high-born  youth,  much  that  is  mistaken  has 
been  inferred  respecting  the  ideal  of  uni- 
[62] 


Avarice 


versal  Christian  duty.  St.  Anthony,  the  her¬ 
mit,  who  only  possessed  his  clothing,  read 
the  command:  “Sell  all  that  thou  hast,”  and 
thereupon  sold  even  it,  keeping  only  a  sheep¬ 
skin  and  a  shirt  of  hair;  and  thenceforward 
he  lived  on  bread  and  water  in  the  desert. 
And  the  great  mendicant  Orders  of  St. 
Francis  and  St.  Dominic,  which  set  forth  to 
carry  the  ideal  of  poverty  into  practice, 
arose  out  of  the  same  command.  It  may  be 
granted  that  the  possession  of  wealth  is 
fraught  with  tragic  dangers.  Professor 
James  has  said:  “When  one  sees  the  way  in 
which  wealth-getting  enters  as  an  ideal  into 
the  very  bone  and  marrow  of  our  genera¬ 
tion,  one  wonders  whether  a  revival  of  the 
belief  that  poverty  is  a  worthy  religious  vo¬ 
cation  may  not  be  the  reform  which  our  time 
stands  most  in  need  of.  Among  us  English- 
speaking  peoples  especially  do  the  praises 
of  poverty  need  once  more  to  be  sung.” 

[63] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

At  the  same  time,  nothing  makes  Chris¬ 
tian  teaching  more  pointless  than  the  de¬ 
nunciation  of  money  in  itself.  The  young 
ruler  presented  a  special  problem,  and  our 
Lord  prescribed  for  him  a  special  and  dras¬ 
tic  remedy.  A  careful  study  of  his  charac¬ 
ter  shows  that  he  could  only  be  made  poor 
in  spirit  by  being  made  poor  in  everything 
else.  He  did  not  own  his  riches:  they  really 
owned  him.  Jesus  must  wake  him  to  much 
more  momentous  needs.  But  we  have  no 
right  to  reason  from  this  particular  case  to 
a  general  ethical  principle.  Side  by  side 
with  the  solemn  warnings  of  Christ  regard¬ 
ing  covetousness,  stand  many  utterances  in 
which  He  speaks  of  money  as  a  talent  to  be 
made  use  of,  both  for  the  advantage  of  its 
possessor  and  for  the  blessing  of  mankind. 
Money  is  the  universal  symbol  of  the  pro¬ 
duct  of  human  toil ;  and  it  is  only  the  soiled 
hands  of  men  that  soil  it,  as  Robert  Louis 

[64] 


Avarice 


Stevenson  aptly  said.  And  everybody 
knows  that,  without  some  measure  at  least 
of  this  world’s  means,  a  man’s  character 
would  lack  many  possibilities  of  refinement, 
and  his  impulses  towards  generosity  and 
beneficence  would  wither  and  starve. 

From  the  diligent  acquisition  of  money, 
however,  avarice  is  to  be  carefully  distin¬ 
guished. 


Gather  gear  by  every  wile 
That’s  justified  by  honour. 

But  when  wealth  becomes  transformed  from 
a  means  into  an  end — when  it  disputes  the 
very  claim  of  God  to  the  allegiance  of  man’s 
heart — then  avarice  results.  No  more  sor¬ 
did  vice  can  degrade  the  human  spirit. 
“Covetousness  which  is  idolatry,”  frankly 
says  St.  Paul;  and  writing  to  youthful 
Timothy,  he  adds:  “The  love  of  money  is  a 
root  of  all  kinds  of  evil.”  Many  a  bloody 

[65] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

war  has  been  produced  by  it;  and  there 
seems  little  doubt  that  the  gigantic  and  san¬ 
guinary  conflict  in  which  the  world  was  re¬ 
cently  involved  had  its  origin  in  Teutonic 
lust  for  the  territories  and  hard-won  pos¬ 
sessions  of  other  peoples.  In  order  to  gra¬ 
tify  this  avaricious  lust,  the  peace  of  the 
world  was  broken,  thousands  of  inno¬ 
cent  lives  were  sacrificed,  and  numberless 
unoffending  persons  were  rendered  home¬ 
less  and  destitute.  “They  that  will  be  rich 
fall  into  temptation  and  a  snare,  and  into 
many  foolish  and  hurtful  lusts,  which  drown 
men  in  destruction  and  perdition.” 

The  perils  of  avarice  are  frequently  illus¬ 
trated  in  our  daily  life,  and  by  no  means  ex¬ 
clusively  among  the  rich.  Indeed  a  deeper 
vein  of  covetousness  may  sometimes  lurk  be¬ 
neath  a  hodman’s  jacket  than  beneath  the 
ermine  of  a  peer.  The  love  of  money  may 
cause  the  prosperous  merchant  to  adulterate 
[66] 


Avarice 


food  and  even  medicine,  and  to  grind  the 
faces  of  the  poor;  but  it  may  also  tempt  the 
clerk  to  rob  his  employer  for  the  sake  of  a 
paltry  shilling,  and  the  artisan  to  defraud 
his  master  for  an  equally  trifling  gain.  For 
thirty  pieces  of  silver,  Judas  sold  his  Lord; 
and  the  price  represented  but  a  few  shillings 
in  our  money.  And  there  are  money-loving 
Judases  still,  who  will  sacrifice  human  well¬ 
being  without  scruple  to  equally  trifling  pri¬ 
vate  gain.  Ruskin  said:  “We  do  great  in¬ 
justice  to  Judas  Iscariot  when  we  think  him 
wicked  above  all  common  wickedness.  He 
was  only  a  common  money-lover,  and  like 
all  money-lovers  the  world  over,  didn’t 
understand  Christ,  couldn’t  make  out  the 
worth  of  Him  or  the  meaning  of  Him. 
Now  this  is  the  money-lover’s  idea  the  world 
over.*  He  doesn’t  hate  Christ,  but  can’t 
understand  Him,  doesn’t  care  for  Him,  sees 
no  good  in  that  benevolent  business,  makes 

[67] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

his  own  little  job  out  of  it,  come  what  will.” 
Take  the  plumber  who,  to  get  an  extra 
profit,  covers  defectively  a  house-drain. 
Soon  afterwards,  the  child  of  the  family 
falls  ill  with  diphtheria  and  dies.  Is  the 
brand  of  avarice  not  upon  that  plumber? 
Or  take  the  workman  who  finds  in  a  casting, 
intended  for  a  steamer,  a  gap  as  large  as  his 
hand.  He  takes  a  piece  of  cold  iron,  heats 
it,  hammers  it  into  the  gap,  smooths  over  the 
surface,  and  thus  saves  the  many  pounds  it 
would  cost  to  reject  the  piece  and  cast  a 
new  one.  The  steamer  proceeds  to  carry 
across  the  sea  many  precious  lives,  and  it 
carries  them  on  the  security  of  that  faulty 
casting.  Can  the  workman  and  the  money- 
loving  foreman  who  passed  that  job  to  save 
expense,  evade  the  brand  of  avarice? 

Such  covetousness  becomes  peculiarly  re¬ 
volting  when  it  is  disguised  beneath  a  veneer 
of  piety,  as  with  a  miscreant  who  declined  to 
[68] 


Avarice 


read  Monday’s  newspaper  because  it  was 
printed  on  Sunday.  This  was  the  kind  of 
character  that  Tennyson  drew  in  “Sea 
Dreams” — 

.  .  .  with  the  fat  affectionate  smile 
That  makes  the  widow  lean. 


Who,  never  naming  God  except  for  gain. 

So  never  took  that  useful  name  in  vain, 

Made  Him  his  catspaw  and  the  Cross  his  tool. 

And  Chri-st  the  bait  to  trap  his  dupe  and  fool. 

There  have  been  writers  who  have  con¬ 
tended  that  the  sin  of  avarice  is  incurable. 
Dante  says: 


Accurst  be  thou, 

Inveterate  wolf,  whose  gorge  ingluts  more  prey 
Than  every  beast  beside,  yet  is  not  filled. 

So  bottomless  thy  maw. 

Still,  the  grace  of  God  is  omnipotent,  and 
the  divine  Physician  knows  no  hopeless 
cases.  Neither  can  it  be  too  strongly  em- 

[69] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

phasised  that  money  is  not  an  end  but  a 
means  for  the  fuller  development  of  charac¬ 
ter  and  for  the  service  of  mankind.  Then 
to  eradicate  the  deadly  sin  of  avarice,  the 
solemn  words  of  Proverbs  must  be  strongly 
kept  in  view:  “Riches  certainly  make  them¬ 
selves  wings;  they  fly  away  as  an  eagle  to¬ 
ward  heaven.”  In  such  a  transient  refuge, 
none  can  find  lasting  peace.  A  traveller 
lost  his  way  in  the  desert.  On  the  point  of 
dying  from  hunger,  he  espied  a  bag  which 
some  other  traveller  had  evidently  dropped. 
With  feverish  eagerness  he  seized  it.  Was 
it,  maybe,  full  of  nuts?  It  was  only  full  of 
pearls.  Each  pearl  was  of  kingly  value; 
but  how  greedily  would  he  have  exchanged 
that  bag  of  pearls  for  a  handful  of  common 
nuts!  To  all  an  hour  approaches  when 
riches  cannot  avail.  “Ah,  Davie,”  said  Dr. 
Johnson  to  his  friend  Garrick,  pointing  to 
the  signs  of  luxury  around  them,  “these  are 

[70] 


Avarice 


the  things  which  make  death  terrible.”  And 
terrible  they  make  it,  where  our  Lord’s  com¬ 
mand  has  not  been  obeyed:  “Make  to  your¬ 
selves  friends  of  the  mammon  of  unright¬ 
eousness;  that  when  ye  fail  they  may  re¬ 
ceive  you  into  everlasting  habitations.” 


[71] 


VI:  GLUTTONY 


VI:  GLUTTONY 


AS  Dante  and  his  fellow-pilgrims 
L  walked  along  the  sixth  terrace  of  the 
purgatorial  mountain — that  of  Gluttony — 
they  came  upon  two  great  trees.  These 
were  the  Tree  of  the  Knowledge  of  Good 
and  Evil,  and  the  Tree  of  Life.  The  river 
of  the  Water  of  Life  fell  from  above  upon 
their  leaves;  and  from  within  their  foliage 
voices  were  heard,  proclaiming  the  doom  of 
greed,  and  historical  and  scriptural  exam¬ 
ples  of  the  beauty  of  temperance.  A  crowd 
of  emaciated  penitents  were  listening  to  the 
voices  with  reverent  and  quiet  mien,  their 
attitude  plainly  demonstrating  how  thor¬ 
oughly  the  deadly  sin  of  gluttony  was  being 
purged  away.  For  nothing  is  more  incon¬ 
sistent  with  thoughtfulness  and  devotion 
than  excess  in  meat  and  drink. 


[75] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

It  is  an  indication  of  the  way  in  which 
man  is  “working  out  the  beast”  that  glut¬ 
tony  is  not  in  modem  times  a  very  clamant 
or  deadly  sin.  In  “By  an  Evolutionist,” 
Tennyson  quaintly  says: 

The  Lord  let  the  house  of  a  brute  to  the  soul  of  a 
man, 

And  the  man  said,  “Am  I  your  debtor?” 

And  the  Lord — “Not  yet:  but  make  it  as  clean  as  you 
can, 

And  then  I  will  let  you  a  better.” 

So  far  as  food  is  concerned,  man  keeps 
the  house  of  his  body  cleaner  to-day  than  in 
less  civilised  times;  and  God  is  “letting  him 
a  better.”  But  gluttony  was  once  a  coarse 
and  prevalent  evil — “the  reeling  Faun,  the 
sensual  feast.”  His  supply  of  food  being 
uncertain,  the  savage  was  wont  to  fill  him¬ 
self  to  repletion  when  he  got  the  chance, 
amazing  us  by  his  dietary  powers.  And 
writers  like  Tacitus  and  Sallust  make  it  clear 

[76] 


Gluttony 

that  in  ancient  Rome  excessive  banqueting 
was  frequently  indulged  in,  even  by  the 
wealthy  and  leisured  classes.  Tacitus  tells 
how,  at  one  extreme  of  society,  thousands  of 
beggars  would  tremble  on  the  brink  of  star¬ 
vation,  should  a  corn  ship  from  Alexandria 
be  delayed;  while,  at  the  opposite  extreme, 
Roman  nobles  would  spend  a  fortune  on  a 
single  banquet,  their  ladies  wearing  robes 
covered  with  emeralds  and  pearls: 

Wealth  a  monster  gorged,  ’mid  starving  populations. 

The  satires  of  Erasmus  also  prove  how 
besetting  and  widespread  was  this  sin, 
among  the  cloisters  of  mediaeval  days.  A 
more  wearisome  place  than  the  old-time 
monastery  it  is  impossible  to  conceive.  And 
the  monks  were  only  too  easily  tempted  to 
vary  its  monotony  by  the  periodical  diver¬ 
sion  afforded  to  them  by  the  refectory,  and 
to  regale  themselves  not  wisely  but  too  well. 

[77] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

There  is  a  picture  of  a  monk,  so  arranged 
that  at  a  distance  it  seems  as  if  his  lectionary 
and  prayerbook  lay  open  on  the  table  before 
him.  But  a  closer  view  proves  what  is  really 
before  him  to  be  his  platter  and  winecup. 
Of  many  a  mediaeval  monk,  the  picture  was 
painfully  true.  Shrouded  in  cloistered  se¬ 
crecy,  and  thought  to  be  absorbed  in  sacred 
study  and  prayer,  he  was  really  the  victim 
of  gluttony,  and  sometimes  of  sins  which 
were  grosser  still.  The  minute  directions  as 
to  diet  and  daily  conduct,  which  were  sup¬ 
plied  by  contemporary  moralists,  throw  a 
lurid  light  upon  the  conditions  prevalent  in 
the  Religious  Houses  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

While  gluttony  cannot  be  described  as  a 
widespread  modem  sin,  a  writer  of  repute 
has  taken  leave  to  say:  “It  is  a  moot  point 
whether  more  life  is  destroyed  by  excessive 
drinking  or  by  excessive  eating.”  And 
Sydney  Smith  wrote:  “According  to  my 

[78] 


Gluttony 

own  computation,  I  have  eaten  and  drunk, 
between  my  seventh  and  my  seventieth 
birthday,  forty-four  wagon  loads  more  than 
was  good  for  me.”  At  all  events,  it  is  never 
superfluous  to  plead  for  the  “golden  mean” 
with  regard  to  the  use  of  food.  “Hast  thou 
found  honey?  Eat  so  much  as  is  sufficient 
for  thee.”  The  Roman  soldier  fought  his 
battles  and  built  his  roads,  sustained  by 
coarse  brown  bread  and  a  little  sour  wine. 
The  Spanish  peasant  will  work  all  day  and 
dance  half  the  night,  upon  black  bread, 
onions,  and  watermelons.  The  Smyrna 
porter  will  carry  surprisingly  heavy  loads 
all  day,  upon  a  little  fruit  and  olives;  as  will 
the  coolie  dieted  on  rice.  One  remembers 
too  that  “plain  living  and  high  thinking” 
have  very  frequently  gone  together.  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  made  some  of  his  greatest 
discoveries  on  the  simplest  fare.  The 
world’s  greatest  work  is  not  generally  done 

[79] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

by  its  largest  eaters.  “Let  your  moderation 
be  known  unto  all  men.”  “Put  a  knife  to 
thy  throat,  if  thou  be  a  man  given  to  appe¬ 
tite.” 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  race  is 
rising  above  the  sin  of  gluttony,  v/ith  respect 
to  the  appetite  of  hunger.  Has  there  been 
a  corresponding  rise  with  respect  to  the  ap¬ 
petite  of  thirst?  It  is  easy  to  become  in¬ 
temperate  even  concerning  temperance. 
But  we  must  face  the  fact  that  the  consump¬ 
tion  of  alcohol  in  Britain  increased,  during 
the  nineteenth  century,  by  twenty-five  per 
cent  per  head  of  the  population;  while  the 
same  thing  was  true  of  other  nations,  and 
of  some  of  the  native  races  also.  And  we 
must  face  the  fact  that  Britain  spends  as 
much  in  a  single  year  on  alcohol  as  she  spent 
on  Foreign  Missions  during  the  whole  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  And  we  must  face  the 
fact  that  three-fourths  of  our  insanity  and 
[80] 


Gluttony 

crime  are  traceable  to  this  source.  Well 
may  Shakespeare,  in  one  of  his  surprisingly 
frequent  allusions  to  this  matter,  cause 
Cassio,  Othello’s  lieutenant,  to  say:  “I  could 
well  wish  courtesy  would  invent  some  other 
custom  of  entertainment.  .  .  .  O  thou  in¬ 
visible  spirit  of  wine,  if  thou  hast  no  name  to 
be  known  by,  let  us  call  thee  devil!” 

In  the  use  of  alcohol,  every  man  must  be 
fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind.  That 
most  spiritual  of  teachers,  Dr.  John  Puls- 
ford,  said:  “Temperance  is  greater  than  ab¬ 
stinence.  To  ride  the  beast  requires  more 
skill  than  to  starve  or  kill  him.  .  .  .  What 
nobler  sight  is  there  upon  earth  than  a  man 
cheerfully  sharing  in  outward  good,  and  yet 
manfully  controlling  himself  in  the  use  of 
it?”  Yet  such  self-control  is  clearly  not 
possible  for  all;  and  to  help  them,  many 
have  decided  to  abstain  altogether.  They 
take  their  guidance  from  the  words  of  St. 

[81] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

Paul:  “I  will  not  destroy  with  my  meat  him 
for  whom  Christ  died.”  We  then  that  are 
strong  ought  to  bear  the  infirmities  of  the 
weak,  and  not  to  please  ourselves.  Sydney 
Smith,  who  once  tried  the  experiment  of  ab¬ 
stinence,  wrote:  “Let  me  state  some  of  the 
good  arising  from  abstaining  from  fer¬ 
mented  liquors.  First,  sweet  sleep:  having 
never  known  what  sweet  sleep  was,  I  sleep 
like  a  baby  or  a  ploughboy.  If  I  wake,  no 
needless  terrors,  no  black  visions  of  life,  but 
pleasing  hopes  and  pleasing  recollections. 
If  I  dream,  it  is  not  of  lions  and  tigers,  but 
of  Easter  dues  and  tithes.  .  .  .  My  under¬ 
standing  is  improved.  I  comprehend  poli¬ 
tical  economy.  Only  one  evil  comes  from  it. 
I  am  in  such  extravagant  spirits  that  I  must 
look  for  some  one  who  will  bore  and  depress 
me.” 

To  cure  the  sin  of  intemperance,  which 
admittedly  wreaks  havoc  in  personal,  domes- 

[82] 


Gluttony 

tic,  and  social  life,  both  ameliorative  and 
prohibitive  measures  have  been  resorted  to, 
on  a  wide  scale.  It  should  never  be  forgot¬ 
ten  that  such  intemperance  is  a  deadly  sin 
against  God.  It  defaces  God’s  fairest 
handiwork,  and  causes  its  victim  to  trail 
his  crown  in  the  mire.  It  defiles  God’s 
temple.  “Know  ye  not,”  wrote  St.  Paul  to 
the  Corinthians,  “that  ye  are  the  temple  of 
God?”  Neither  should  the  solemn  words  of 
St.  Paul  be  overlooked:  “Drunkards  shall 
not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God.”  The 
gradual  but  inexorable  deterioration  of 
character  which  intemperance  brings  about 
is  one  of  the  saddest  things  in  the  world.  A 
man’s  self-respect,  honesty,  affection  for 
friends  and  even  for  wife  and  children  may 
be  slowly  undermined,  until  his  nature  at 
last  comes  to  resemble  a  rotten  wall,  in 
which  no  nail  will  hold. 

The  most  potent  cure  of  all  is  suggested 

[83] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

by  St.  Paul’s  words  to  the  Ephesians:  “Be 
not  drunk  with  wine,  wherein  is  excess,  but 
be  ye  filled  with  the  Spirit.”  “I  cannot 
break  with  it,”  said  a  slave  of  alcoholic  ex¬ 
cess.  “No,”  replied  his  adviser,  “but  God’s 
Spirit  in  you  can.”  And  before  the  sad¬ 
dened  wife  and  barefoot  children,  they  knelt 
and  prayed.  The  wretch  arose,  kissed  his 
wife,  and  declared  that  the  new  life  had  be¬ 
gun.  It  had.  “If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he 
is  a  new  creature.” 


[84] 


VII:  SENSUALITY 


VII:  SENSUALITY 


HAVING  reached  the  seventh  terrace 
of  Mount  Purgatory — that  nearest 
the  Garden  of  Paradise  upon  the  summit — 
Dante  and  his  fellow-pilgrims  emerge  upon 
a  very  perilous  defile.  The  hillside  which 
slopes  up  to  the  Earthly  Paradise  immedi¬ 
ately  above,  emits  a  great  flame  enveloping 
almost  the  whole  of  the  terrace,  and  allow¬ 
ing  scarcely  room  to  walk.  And  in  this 
purifying  flame  the  penitents  are  being 
chastened  and  cleansed.  Virgil  warns  Dante 
to  impose  a  sedulous  watch  upon  his  eyes, 
since  a  single  false  step  might  mean  his  de¬ 
struction.  It  is  manifestly  a  poetic  picture 
of  the  way  in  which  the  deadly  sin  of  sensu¬ 
ality  originates  in  the  realm  of  imagination 
and  thought,  and  of  how  its  motions  of  un- 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

holy  passion  must  be  purified  by  the  sacred 
fire  of  God.  One  recalls  Ezekiel’s  weird 
and  terrifying  trance,  in  the  course  of  which 
the  profanities  and  excesses  of  Jewish  wor¬ 
ship  are  vividly  traced  by  his  dazzling  Guide 
to  the  people’s  inward  degradation.  “Son 
of  man,  hast  thou  seen  what  the  ancients  of 
the  house  of  Israel  do  in  the  dark,  every  man 
in  the  chambers  of  his  imagery  ?” 

The  Latin  name  applied  by  mediaeval 
writers  to  the  seventh  of  the  Deadly  Sins  is 
luxuria .  The  word,  however,  does  not 
merely  indicate  what  we  mean  by  “luxury.” 
It  was  employed  by  the  schoolmen  as  a  eu¬ 
phemism  for  self-indulgence  and  for  the 
gross  and  carnal  sin  of  licentiousness  and 
vice.  No  theme  is  more  difficult  to  handle. 
As  a  rule,  the  less  said  of  it  the  better;  and 
the  reticence  in  which  it  is  commonly 
shrouded  is  in  itself  the  severest  of  all  pos- 
[88] 


Sensuality 

sible  condemnations.  Even  to  speak  of  it  is 
a  shame. 

Yet  reticence  ought  not  to  be  carried  too 
far.  If  there  is  a  time  to  be  silent,  there  is 
also  a  time  to  speak.  Perhaps  teachers  and 
preachers  have  been  too  long  tongue-tied  by 
a  policy  of  silence  on  this  matter,  when  they 
should  have  warned  young  men  and  women 
concerning  evils  which  cloud  their  imagina¬ 
tions,  soil  their  hands,  and  sap  their  charac¬ 
ters.  Ignorance  may  often  give  to  tempta¬ 
tion  a  cruel  advantage ;  but  to  be  fore¬ 
warned  is  to  be  forearmed. 

That  the  repulsive  and  carnal  sin  of  licen¬ 
tiousness  in  its  many  forms  centres  in  the 
thought  and  the  imagination  is  one  of  the 
most  prominent  themes  in  the  Book  of  Pro¬ 
verbs — the  young  man’s  vade  mecum — and 
it  is  also  one  of  the  plainest  and  most  fre¬ 
quently  reiterated  of  the  ethical  teachings 

[89] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

of  Jesus.  When  youthful  feet  are  on  the 
fender  and  the  hour  is  late,  licentious  words 
may  be  spoken,  in  defiance  of  chastity  and 
self-respect.  When  coarse  and  unscrupu¬ 
lous  men  find  themselves  in  situations  in 
which  the  restraints  of  social  decency  and 
purity  may  be  flung  off  with  impunity,  li¬ 
centious  acts  may  be  committed  in  utter  dis¬ 
regard  of  the  dictates  of  humanity.  But  the 
fountain  of  all  such  words  and  acts  is  in  the 
thought.  “As  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart, 
so  is  he.”  Physiology  would  state  it  thus. 
In  the  substance  of  the  brain,  channels  be¬ 
come  dug  which  gradually  make  the  course 
of  the  evil  current  easier,  until  self-control 
is  lost  and  the  life  grows  to  be  a  pandemon¬ 
ium  of  vice.  But  Jesus  states  it  in  language 
which  is  more  terrible  still.  “Out  of  the 
heart  proceed  evil  thoughts,  murders,  adul¬ 
teries,  fornications,  thefts,  false  witness, 
blasphemies:  these  are  the  things  which  de- 

[90] 


Sensuality 

file  a  man.”  Thought  is  action;  and  the  pol¬ 
luted  current  of  word  and  deed  must  flow 
from  the  spring  of  defiled  imagination  and 
polluted  mind  and  heart. 

The  very  size  and  majesty  of  a  ship  bury 
the  sunken  rock  more  deeply  in  her  prow; 
and  the  corruption  of  the  best  is  the  worst. 
God  has  bestowed  on  man  no  fairer  and 
nobler  gift  than  imagination.  But  this  di¬ 
vine  gift  is  open  to  tragic  perils.  Nothing 
indeed  might  seem  so  fragile  and  insubstan¬ 
tial;  yet  nothing  is  really  so  creative  and 
enduring.  The  products  of  imagination 
outlast  dynasties;  and  the  tides  which  fret 
away  the  rocks  are  powerless  against  these 
imperishable  wonders.  Medievalism  is 
gone;  but  Raphael,  Murillo,  Angelico  still 
hold  us  by  their  imaginations.  Milton, 
Bunyan,  Dante  still  rule  us  from  their  urns. 
And  we  can  still  see  how  the  stupendous 
imaginations  of  men  of  former  days  worked 

[91] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

out  noble  institutions,  and  stately  domes  and 
spires. 

But  this  “hall  of  fantasy” — in  Nathan¬ 
iel  Hawthorne’s  striking  phrase — may  be 
shockingly  polluted.  So  far  from  being 
hung  with  fancies  beautiful  and  pure — like 
the  cell  of  Fra  Angelico,  whose  walls  were 
covered  with  seraphs’  faces  and  angels’ 
wings — they  may  harbour  thoughts  of  li¬ 
cence  and  shame.  And  nothing  contributes 
to  create  such  thoughts  more  potently  than 
the  defiled  pictures  and  the  tainted  and 
“suggestive”  books  which  are  thrust  upon 
the  notice  of  young  people  to-day.  A  shop 
in  one  of  our  cities  went  so  far  as  to  an¬ 
nounce  in  its  window  that  it  had,  inside,  pic¬ 
tures  it  could  not  openly  display!  And  not 
only  are  there  quantities  of  harmful  books 
issued  and  circulated  to-day,  but  in  stories 
which  are  apparently  decent  there  is  an  ele¬ 
ment  of  libertinism  frequently  insinuated, 

[92] 


Sensuality 

which  works  havoc  in  youthful  minds  and 
consciences.  One  of  the  originators  of  this 
type  of  “literature”  was  Zola.  Capable  of 
splendid  work,  he  prostituted  his  powers. 
He  gathered  from  the  refuse  of  life  much 
that  was  contemptible  and  set  it  to  seethe, 
until  it  sent  forth  poisonous  vapours  to  suf¬ 
focate  the  higher  potentialities  of  man. 
And  Nature  exacted  a  grim  penalty  and 
took  a  startling  revenge  upon  him.  As  Zola 
asphyxiated  his  readers,  so  Nature  asphyxi¬ 
ated  him.  He  died  of  suffocation.  It  was 
one  of  those  ironies  which  we  do  not  easily 
forget. 

To  cure  the  deadly  sin  of  sensuality,  it 
should  always  be  emphasised  that  God  has 
endowed  man  with  freedom  of  will,  and 
power  to  choose  the  right,  pure,  and  clean. 
Licentious  appetites  frequently  advance  the 
plea  that,  after  all,  a  man  “must  obey  his 
instincts”  and  “have  his  fling.”  His  “natu- 

[93] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

ral  desires,”  being  part  of  his  equipment,  re¬ 
quire  to  be  indulged.  Such  desires,  however, 
must  always  be  held  in  subjection  to  the 
supremacy  of  will,  “the  toughest  sinew  in 
creation.”  To  say  that  one  must  necessarily 
yield  to  his  natural  impulses  without  re¬ 
straint,  reduces  man  to  the  level  of  the  beast. 
It  would  be  as  reasonable  to  say  that  the 
furnaces  of  a  steamer,  having  been  fed  to 
their  utmost,  should  be  left  to  drive  the  ves¬ 
sel  whithersoever  they  may.  If  men  “must 
have  their  fling,”  another  “must”  will  insist 
on  coming  into  play,  and  they  must  reap  as 
they  have  sown.  The  grim  words  of  the 
Book  of  Job  will  be  fulfilled:  “His  bones  are 
full  of  the  iniquity  of  his  youth,  which  shall 
lie  down  with  him  in  the  grave.” 

Further,  there  is  no  defence  against  sen¬ 
suality  more  effective  than  the  positive  pre¬ 
occupation  of  mind  and  heart  with  fair  and 
noble  themes.  Martin  Luther  used  to  say: 

[94] 


\ 


Sensuality 

‘'You  cannot  cleanse  a  stable  with  spades 
and  brooms.  Turn  the  Elbe  into  it.”  So 
if  one  lets  in  the  rush  of  a  new  passion  for 
the  right  and  true,  one  will  conquer  by  dis¬ 
placement  and  replacement;  and  the  evils 
which  he  laments  will  be  swept  away. 
“Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness,  for  they  shall  be  filled.” 
Dr.  Chalmers  coined  a  suggestive  phrase: 
“The  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection,” 
and  it  is  said  that  the  following  incident 
brought  it  to  his  mind.  He  was  driving,  one 
day,  on  a  pastoral  errand,  and  at  a  certain 
point  on  the  road,  his  “man”  drew  the  whip 
and  gave  the  pony  a  sharp  cut.  Chalmers 
remonstrated.  The  driver  said:  “Do  you 
see  that  white  post?  The  pony  has  a  way 
of  shying  at  it;  so  when  we  approach  it,  I 
always  give  him  a  touch  of  the  whip,  to  let 
him  have  something  else  to  think  about.” 
In  exchange  for  the  passion  of  self-indul- 

[95] 


The  Seven  Deadly  Sins 

gence,  we  can  always  find  deliverance  and 
peace  in  the  passion  of  a  new  affection  for 
Him  who  yearns  to  draw  all  men  to  Him¬ 
self. 

St.  Paul  loved  to  speak  of  Christ  as  “the 
Image  of  God.”  May  we  not  think  the 
apostle  meant  that  Christ  was  God’s  appeal 
to  our  imagination?  When  the  illumina¬ 
tion  of  His  presence  floods  our  minds  and 
hearts,  all  the  dark  and  polluted  shapes 
must  disappear.  With  His  glorious  reality, 
no  foul  thing  can  coexist.  Nothing  can  keep 
mind,  heart,  and  imagination  so  free  from 
sensual  taint  as  the  knowledge  and  love  of 
Him  who  is  “the  brightness  of  God’s  glory 
and  the  express  Image  of  His  person.” 


THE  END 


[96] 


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